


take this sinking boat and point it home

by cupcakeb



Category: Elite (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Cheating, F/M, aka Nadia never went to Las Encinas
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-07
Updated: 2021-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-13 20:55:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29906970
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cupcakeb/pseuds/cupcakeb
Summary: You’d think it would fade with time, would stop evoking this visceral reaction in him. But no; even ten years later, it still feels raw. The masochist in him wants it to always feel so awful. He never wants to forget about Marina, even if the pain of it all can be devastating. Sometimes it still wrecks him.Maybe if Nadia had known his sister, she’d understand. Maybe she’d see how this changed him, how it changed his family, his whole life.Carla understands.
Relationships: Background Nadia/Guzman - Relationship, Carla Rosón Carleruega/Guzmán Nunier Osuna
Comments: 4
Kudos: 24





	take this sinking boat and point it home

**Author's Note:**

> *I will go down with this ship plays in the distance*

The trip to Madrid to see his parents wasn’t even his idea.  
  
He fucking hates Madrid. He can’t go anywhere here without it slapping him in the face — the realization that, once upon a time, he led a happy life here. He lived in a big house with a dog and a pool, and was spoiled by loving parents who never once made him feel less than Marina, even though he didn’t share their DNA.  
  
Marina. Every single good memory he has of this soulless city is connected to her somehow.

You’d think it would fade with time, would stop evoking this visceral reaction in him. But no; even ten years later, it still feels raw. The masochist in him wants it to always feel so awful. It reminds him that Marina was frustrating to deal with, a challenge to care for and most importantly real. He never wants to forget that, even if the pain of it all can be devastating. Sometimes it still wrecks him.  
  
It’s his fault for opening up to Nadia about all of this. Nadia is a problem solver; an enthusiastic empath who is somehow convinced talking about things and showing you care will change the world. He admires that idealism in her. It’s one of the reasons he’s still with her, even after three years of a drawn-out engagement that neither of them has bothered to turn into marriage.  
  
Change is the thing he fears most about leaving her. It sucks, honestly, how inevitable that thought feels; he is definitely going to leave her eventually. One of the things he loves most in this world is his comfort zone. Their pretty two-bedroom apartment in downtown Barcelona, the one they bought together years ago, is an integral part of that. He loves Nadia, too — she’s a calming presence, and she knows him well enough at this point to offer him distractions when he gets frustrated and angry. She never solves his issues for him, but she finds the right form of temporary relief to make him forget. He’s scared of what he might do if he didn’t have her around for that anymore.

So it was Nadia’s idea to fly to Madrid. She knows, of course, that the ten-year anniversary of Marina’s death is coming up. He’s sure his mother has talked her ear off about preparations for the wake she wants to organize. It’s nice of Nadia to suggest they go and help out. He just kind of selfishly doesn’t want her around for any of this; the thought of that alone makes him feel like the worst boyfriend in the world. (He can’t even bring himself to _think_ the term fiancé.)   
  
Sometimes he wishes he met her sooner. Maybe if Nadia had known Marina, if she’d met her at thirteen, with the green streak in her hair and the rebellious grin on her lips, or at fifteen, when the rebellious grin had already turned into a permanent indignant frown… Maybe she’d understand. Maybe she’d see how this changed him, how it changed his family, his whole life.  
  
As it stands, she only knows the after; the polished, redacted version of him. It’s like she read the Wikipedia page but didn’t bother checking any of the sources in the footnotes. She knows the Guzmán who has spent enough years in denial about the pain and anguish, he’s almost ready to believe it never happened. The man she’s engaged to doesn’t talk about his childhood, rarely mentions his sister, because he can’t bring himself to. Someone who didn’t know Marina wouldn’t understand.  
  
Carla understands.

When she walks into the restaurant they’re meeting at for lunch, she’s wearing tight pants, a white top that shows off just a hint of cleavage and a black blazer, and he’s not gonna lie, she looks great. She’s actually a lot prettier than he remembered. In fairness, it’s been a few years since he paid much attention to her, so it makes sense that she’d look different to him.   
  
The hug he engulfs her in is tight, and for a second he wonders if this is gonna be the kind of uncomfortable catch-up that’ll leave him depressed and drained for a week. That happens sometimes, usually after he sees Ander or Lu. Then Carla moves out of his embrace and flashes him a beautiful, enigmatic smile and he remembers. Being around her has never required much effort. The grin on his lips isn’t forced, for once.  
  
It’s weird. He and Carla were close friends, about a million years ago. Then puberty hit, and he just kind of lost track of her and then Marina died and— yeah. They’re not close anymore.

“So ten years,” Carla says after they finish their food, after the bottle of wine they were sharing stands ruefully empty on the table between them. “How the fuck has it been that long?”

He wants to fucking hug her for saying exactly what he’s been thinking. This is the sort of sentiment he’s never allowed himself to express. But really, how can ten years have passed since he last bickered with Marina over breakfast? Since he last lectured her — in vain — on the dangers of her careless, reckless behavior? It seems surreal.

His hand clenches into a fist instantly. Sometimes he still feels this irrational, misplaced anger about all of this, though he’s learned how to hide it. He grabs the fist he’s making with his other hand and wills himself to relax, letting the tension drain from his body on a deep exhale.

“You need to get drunk,” Carla observes because that’s all she ever does. It’s what makes her such an easy person to talk to; she reads people well. She’s always been able to read him. “Any plans for the rest of the day?”

Well, yeah. Nadia is with his mom, picking out flower arrangements for the wake later this week, and he told her lunch wouldn’t take too long. But if he texted her to let her know he needs some more time, she’d probably understand.

“I’m all yours,” he tells the blonde, grinning at her. “Let’s get out of here.”

Heading to a nearby bar isn't an option. He’s not gonna get drunk with her in public. Not when he can’t be sure he won’t feel the need to punch a hole into the nearest wall, depending on the topic of conversation.

Carla waves down a waiter and hands him some cash, then jumps out of her chair and holds her hand out to Guzmán. “Let’s go.”

The freckles on her nose remind him of summers long gone.

|||

“And then she said she’d never let anyone force her to wear a uniform again, remember?”

Carla’s apartment is smaller than he expected. It’s mundane, almost, though the interior design tells a different story. It’s humble in all the right ways.

She’s sitting on the floor, her legs drawn up to her chest, balancing a glass of wine on her knees. He’s not sure how they ended up down here — the couch is literally _right there_.

Carla is flicking through old pictures and videos on an iPad, and it’s almost intimidating to think about how she’s got their entire childhood organized in little folders in the cloud somewhere. Most of his pictures are hidden away in the attic at his parents' house, real printouts collecting dust in a box.  
  
And look, this little digital walk down memory lane has been great, but they’ve been doing this for over an hour. He’s too drunk to keep talking about Marina. He’ll just end up weeping, and then he’ll feel terrible tomorrow from a mixture of emotional and wine hangover, and no one will be better off for it.  
  
He nudges her knee with his, and she puts down the iPad to smile at him.  
  
“You seem good,” Guzmán says because she does. “Like you have your shit together.”  
  
Carla snorts out a laugh, the sound of it so uncouth and clumsy, it’s completely unlike her. He likes tipsy Carla. “I am so far away from having my shit together, Guzmán.”  
  
He finds himself smirking. Shit. He likes that answer and how direct she is. He really doesn’t know enough about her life anymore to figure these things out himself. The last time they saw each other was over a year ago, and she was dating some pretentious wine industry dude. “How’s Javier?”  
  
He isn't sure why he remembers his name at all.   
  
“Engaged to someone else,” she deadpans, and once again he finds himself grinning a little at the boldness. “How’s Nadia?”  
  
There’s a twinkle in her eye, like she’s baiting him, and he stopped being able to lie about three glasses of wine ago. “Still engaged to me, for better or for worse.”  
  
Carla raises an eyebrow and takes a sip of her merlot, staring straight ahead. She looks like she’s resigned herself to keeping whatever on the nose comment she’s clearly thinking to herself.  
  
“Fuck you,” he murmurs, grabbing onto her knee to get her to look at him. “You can say it.”  
  
“You seem really unhappy,” is all she says, causing him to breathe in deep. Then there’s this silence that feels a little awful, but he also doesn’t want to ruin it by speaking. He doesn’t want to be alone again yet.  
  
Is he unhappy? He’s not sure. All he knows is he definitely isn’t happy. “Maybe.”  
  
“There are ways to change that, you know,” she says all softly, and he has no idea what to say to that. His relationship is hardly the cause of his unhappiness; it’s a combination of about a million and one things — he wouldn’t even know where to start.  
  
Guzmán is drunk, and exhausted from being in this city, even after just two days. That’s why he scoffs, angry and defensive, and says, “I wouldn’t know how.”  
  
Carla gives him this look that’s somehow both pitying and calling him out on his shit, and he really doesn’t need this from her right now. He doesn’t need anyone to remind him that he’s in charge of his own destiny and yada yada. He knows; he’s dealt with enough ditzy therapists in his life to know.  
  
He passes out on her couch a few hours later and she lets him. The last thing he’s peripherally aware of is hearing her on the phone to Nadia, telling her not to wait up for him, and he’s already dreading having to face his fiancé tomorrow.  
  
|||  
  
Nadia takes it in stride.  
  
“Look at you, drunkenly passing out on a friend’s couch like you’re sixteen again,” she teases, and he grins at her even though he’d rather be rolling his eyes. It’s not like he was out having the time of his life; quiet commiserating and reminiscing about his dead sister is hardly the sort of drunk activity he’d expect a sixteen-year-old to be into. (That was him at seventeen, maybe.)

“My head hurts,” he complains, and Nadia shrugs.

They’re supposed to help his mom clean out the attic today, which is definitely not ideal considering his current state of general exhaustion.

“And whose fault is that?”

See, things aren’t always bad between them. They’re not even bad half the time, but they’re never good, and that makes the whole relationship feel like too much work.

He wraps her up in a hug, then laughs against her neck and tells her they should join his mom for lunch in the garden.

|||

The way it happens is incredibly stupid.

He’s always assumed if he were to cheat on Nadia, he’d have to be drunk for it. His moral compass is a little too refined these days to do that shit sober — or so he thought.

It’s two days after the wake — which was fucking awful, thank you for asking — and Nadia has left him alone at his parents' place, off to meet some friend or cousin or something for dinner. He didn’t really listen after she mentioned she’d be gone for the day because he was kind of relieved. It’s been a few too many days of acting okay when he’s actually doing terrible.   
  
And yeah, would he feel better if he was just upfront about his feelings with those closest to him? Probably, but that’s not him. He’s bad at admitting anything is wrong.

Anyway. Carla texts him about hanging out, and he finds himself agreeing to come over before he’s really thought it through. They’re both lonely, and at least a little miserable, but he felt lighter around Carla last week, for some reason.

“Tuesday was intense,” Carla says when he’s on the couch next to her.

It’s the middle of the day, a weird time between lunch and dinner, and it’s obvious neither of them knows what to do now that they can’t pretend they’re just meeting up for a meal. Some booze would be nice. Does thinking that make him an alcoholic? Shit.

He nods anyway. “It was fucking awful,” he says, which is the first time he’s allowed himself to admit that to anyone.

“Do you ever think about...” Carla trails off, which feels even worse than having her pinpoint something because now he’s thinking about _all_ of it. Last conversations, what life would be like if he still had a sister, his anger management issues following her death — a lot of things in his life have been affected by Marina.

“Think about what?” he baits, turning to face her. He wants to hear her say it. Maybe it’ll be good for him to hear. Exposure therapy, or whatever.

Carla takes a deep breath. “About how this whole thing was my fault. If I hadn’t been freaking out about the watch, Polo wouldn’t have…” She pauses, glances over and he scoffs.

“It was not _your_ fault. Are you insane?”

She looks away from him then, and he isn’t sure what’s happening. Is she crying? The last time he saw Carla cry was in preschool; this is new. He sees a tear roll down her cheek, one of those perfect movie-worthy slow-motion tears, and it kind of makes him chuckle. It’s unfair how gorgeous she looks.

“How the fuck do you look this pretty when you cry?”

Carla hits his arm, then wipes at her eyes as she rolls them at him, but she’s smiling again, so his diversion technique worked. She scoots closer to him until their legs and shoulders are touching, and then she lets her head slide down his chest, resting it in his lap.

He wants to be running a hand through her hair, so he does.

It doesn’t get weird until he moves the hand to rest on her shoulder, then slowly trails it down her arm and back up her stomach. He isn’t really doing it on purpose. She’s in a plain tank top, a good amount of cleavage on display, and he can’t resist the urge of brushing it with his fingers, just a featherlight touch. He finally just rests his hand on her waist, and when he looks down at her he finds her lips slightly parted as she’s staring up at him.

Shit. He doesn’t know what to do now. Carla is looking at him with the sort of leering, sexual gaze he’s never seen her use on _him_ before, and if he’s being honest, it’s thrilling, getting this kind of reaction out of her. He wants to see what else he can make her do.  
  
(What the fuck is wrong with him?)

“Should we,” he starts, sighing when Carla’s hand reaches up to pop open a few of the buttons on his shirt. “Carla, come on.”

Then she’s sitting up, moving so she’s properly straddling his lap, and he closes his eyes to avoid hers. She’s too close to him. There’s no way he’ll be able to say no to her. He doesn’t want to.

It’s probably pathetic how he only remembers he’s got a girlfriend when Carla’s hand is in his and she plays with the ring on his finger. He’s pathetic in more ways than one.  
  
He’s not stopping her.  
  
He’s not pushing her away.  
  
He doesn’t stop her when she kisses him either. No, in fact, his hands immediately move to her hips, and his lips part for her. It all feels out of his immediate control.

“What about Nadia?” he asks finally, whispers it like that’ll make it less fucked up.

Carla kind of scoffs, and that’s how he knows she must’ve been thinking about this for a while. “What you decide to do with your time is none of my concern.” 

That makes him feel a little shitty for a moment, but she does have a point. If he does this, it’s on him. He’s making the conscious decision to cheat, and he started it, too — he isn’t going to be able to blame this on anything but his own stupidity.

Finally, he nods, then grabs her by the back of her head and pulls her in for a desperate kiss. It’s fucking insane, actually, how right it feels to be kissing her. She instantly starts unbuttoning the rest of his shirt, somehow multitasks driving him insane with teasing kisses and her hands on his chest, and he’s left breathing hard as she pulls back so she can pull her top over her head.

He’s seen Carla in many swimsuits over the years, but now she’s in a lacy black bra, the kind he’d wager she might only wear when she’s hoping someone will see her in it. He lets himself stare for a minute longer than is strictly appropriate, and when she laughs, his eyes flick back up to hers.

“Don’t tell me you’re just gonna stare.”  
  
Fuck, he’s pretty sure if she keeps up the bluntness, he’ll do something embarrassing like come before she’s even touched him.  
  
“Guzmán,” she says when he zones out for a little too long. “I told you to fucking touch me.”

This is the worst thing he could possibly do, and he’s doing it.

Maybe he’d feel worse about cheating if it didn’t feel so good.

He isn’t going to overthink it.

|||

To his credit, he tells Nadia as soon as he gets a chance. Almost. She deserves to know the truth, and there are probably a bunch of other things she deserves to hear from him. The timing is shitty, because they’re due to fly back to Barcelona tomorrow, and he probably shouldn’t have told her right as they’re about to go to bed, but he needed to get this off his chest.

Nadia’s reaction is calm, too calm for someone who just found out their fiancé cheated and wants to break up. “What do you want me to say?”

He doesn’t really know the answer to that.

“I guess I want you to agree this isn’t going anywhere.”

She actually laughs, then. “Guzmán, you slept with another woman, this obviously isn’t going to go anywhere _now_. I have more respect for myself than that.”

He wouldn’t have expected any less from her.

He might as well come clean. “I just think it hasn’t been right for a long time, and I’m sorry I had to fuck up like this to actually gather up the courage to tell you.”

They’re in bed, under the covers with the lights out, and Nadia turns onto her side to face him. He’s confused about her reaction. Maybe it’s because all of his previous breakups ended in psychotic shouting matches, but this lack of response is almost insulting. Is she not mad? Shouldn’t she care a little more?  
  
It’s almost as if she’s known, deep down, that the inevitable end was near, too.

She says, “Maybe we should take some time apart,” and runs a hand over his chest, and if that’s what she needs to tell herself to get through this, then sure. They can take a break.

Guzmán sighs, pulls her close and nods.

“Let’s figure this out tomorrow.”

He doesn’t know what both of them falling asleep instantly says about the state of affairs.

|||

He tells his mother he decided to stay a little longer to catch up with friends and help Ander through his breakup, which is a white lie. It’s preferable to telling her he slept with his childhood best friend, the girl he knows his parents always wanted him to marry, and broke up with his fiancé.

Nadia went back to Barcelona by herself so she’ll have time to pack her things. Moving out was her idea, and he wasn’t going to be overbearing and gentlemanly and suggest he move out instead. He loves their apartment. As petty as it sounds, he does own a bigger share of it because he paid a pretty large deposit upfront, so it makes more sense for him to pay her out.

It’s weird to think it’s been less than 24 hours since he saw Carla and used her to finally have a real reason to break off his unhappy engagement. He knows that sounds cruel, but it’s probably true. He really was looking for something more tangible to trigger a breakup — just being unhappy didn’t seem like a good enough excuse.

He wanted her, too, though. That’s the main reason he slept with her.

It’s the main reason he’s going to try to see her again. He _still_ wants her.

He texts her just after lunch, asks if she wants to get dinner, and she says, _‘Sure,’_ and then, _‘I thought you were back in Barcelona,’_ like she’s suspicious or something. He sends her the name of a restaurant and a time, and figures he’ll tell her everything else later.

They make it through fifteen minutes of small talk before Carla gives him this exasperated, no-nonsense look and says, “Do we need to talk about this?”

He takes a sip of his beer and sighs. Not really, but they probably should.

“I broke up with her.”

Carla looks surprised for a second, but she recovers quickly, just nods like she’s taking the information in. “Why did you do that?”

Is she... Why did he _do_ that? Isn’t it obvious?

He chuckles. “Because I was fucking miserable.”

“Oh, thank _god_. For a second I thought you were gonna say you did it to be with me.”

Should he take offense at that? It’s possible. He doesn’t, though. Carla tells it like it is and he appreciates that.

“Really only angling for some pity sex here,” he jokes, then grins at her when she kicks his shin under the table. “I’ll even pay for dinner.”

She doesn’t let him pay, in the end. “That’d just be thinly veiled prostitution,” she says, and he laughs so hard, she puts a hand over his mouth as they walk out of the fancy restaurant.

He presses her against the nearest wall he can find once they’re outside, leans in to kiss her and asks, “Since you paid for dinner, aren’t you paying _me_ for _my_ services?”

She throws her head back to laugh, and yeah, he’s already feeling a lot better about everything.

|||

“Hey, are you actually okay?”

They’re in bed, naked, and Carla is draped over him. It’s been about a week of this, of him mostly hiding out at her apartment, doing the bare minimum of work he can get away with from her dining table.

He can’t really hide this from his mother for much longer, and he should definitely actually go back to Barcelona sometime.

“I’m fine,” he says, which is mostly a reflex. He’s not _not_ fine.

Carla props herself up on her elbows, looks down at him and laughs. “You’re the worst liar I know.”

“Nah, Polo is the worst liar we know.”

She rolls off of him, mutters, “Was,” and slips on her robe. It’s too early for this kind of conversation.

That’s the problem with spending so much time around Carla — there’s a whole lot of uncomfortable history there. For the most part, he doesn’t mind, but sometimes it feels a little overwhelming to think she knows all of these things about him.

It’s nice, too. It feels nice to not have to brace for impact every time the past is brought up. He had to do that around Nadia. With Carla, he can just be in the moment, even if just thinking those words makes him want to gag a little. Lately, his thoughts have really started to resemble the shit a fucking life coach might say to sell a happiness seminar.

He joins her in the kitchen, whips up some pancakes and totally ignores all the teasing remarks about him being a culinary genius.

“Do you want to come back to Barcelona with me?”

It would be nice to have her around when he gets back to an empty apartment. Guzmán isn’t naive enough to think she’d move across the country for him, but asking her to come hang out for a while is fine. He’s given that some thought, and he’s pretty sure the bylaws of flings with friends allow for it.  
  
That doesn’t mean he isn’t feeling slightly nervous now, watching her nibble on a piece of pancake as she glances at him. When she doesn’t answer right away, he plays it off.  
  
“Never mind, that was a dumb thing to ask.”

“I really don’t,” she says after a moment’s pause, an apologetic smile on her lips. At least she’s being honest. “But call me when the dust has settled.”

He might. He _could_ call her, even if the look in her eyes makes him think she’s not expecting to hear from him.

|||

Work gets busy, then, and he’s never been very good at keeping in touch with friends. He’s bad at it under normal circumstances, and really fucking terrible at it when you add in the whole hooking up thing. Shit, are they even friends? He hopes they are.  
  
He’s texted Carla maybe once or twice since July, and they’ve been liking each others’ social media posts, but that’s kind of been it.  
  
In October, he’s walking out of the office, chatting with one of the new interns because he sympathizes with how hard it is to get into the world of corporate law. It’s a ruthless industry, and he was an intern himself not too long ago, so he gets it.  
  
He’s so focused on the story the kid is telling, he completely misses that there’s someone waiting outside the large sliding doors trying to get his attention until intern #2 (god, he really should learn his name) clears his throat and points at someone.  
  
It’s Carla, smiling like she thinks it’s cute how he was so into the conversation he was having that he didn’t notice her at all.  
  
They haven’t seen each other since that day in early July, and things should probably be awkward but they aren’t. Guzmán says goodbye to Diego (see? He remembered!), then opens his arms wide and smiles at nothing in particular when Carla just folds her arms around him in an enthusiastic hug.   
  
Now that he’s focused on her, it’s hard not to notice her. He pulls back from the hug, keeps her at arm's length, and allows himself to stare. Fuck, it’s like his brain purposefully remembers her as average-looking and without fail, every time he sees her he’s struck by how fucking great she actually looks. She’s in plain blue jeans and a hoodie, with an open trench coat on top, and her hair is up in a simple bun, her face mostly makeup-less.   
  
He finally says, “What the hell?” because it’s the only thing he can come up with.  
  
Carla smirks at him, then leans forward so she can whisper, “I figured you weren’t gonna call.”

He feels so stupidly happy for a moment, he doesn’t even ask why she’s here, or for how long, or about the logistics of the whole thing.

“Let’s get a drink,” he tells her instead, then grins when she reaches for his hand.

|||

He doesn’t fully realize she’s actually here right now until he’s pushing her back onto his kitchen counter a few hours later, both of them naked and panting and ready to combust.

She lies back on it easy enough, winces when her skin touches the cold marble countertop, and he lets himself stare for a few seconds. Carla looks fucking unreal like this; lots of people look good clothed, but she’s fucking flawless, even without a single shred of fabric covering her. Her chest is perfectly round and nimble, her hip bones peek through just enough to frame her waist, and her legs seem so long, he immediately pictures throwing them both over his shoulder.

“Guzmán,” she cries out when he takes a little too long to commit every inch of her body to memory. “Hurry the fuck up.”

“Sorry,” he says, grabbing her by the ankle so he can pull her closer to the edge of the counter. “You’re just really fucking pretty like this.”

Carla laughs, the loud sound unexpected and raw, and he grins at her. “I’m not just pretty _like this_.”

He’d fight her on that a little harder if it wasn’t absolutely true. Besides, her innate sense of confidence is fucking hot. He likes how she owns it.

And yeah, they could probably do this in a bed or somewhere more comfortable, but this seems like the right spot to convey the urgency of the situation.

Guzmán is pretty sure he’s hallucinating when she whispers, “Thank you,” against his shoulder, but he’s so high on endorphins, he just kisses the top of her hair and pulls her closer.

|||

That night, in bed, he tries and fails to stop himself from smiling at absolutely nothing.

“How did you even figure out where I work?”

“Your mother loves me, Guzmán, never underestimate the power that connection holds.”

He scoffs. “I haven’t even told her I’m single yet.”

It wasn’t really something he consciously decided to hide from her, but he knows she’d worry about him a lot more if she didn’t think he had a girlfriend around to take care of him, so he may have neglected to mention the fact that Nadia moved out three months ago. They’re still friends, and nothing ended in shambles, but there’s no way they’re ever getting back together.

He probably should tell his mother at some point.

“She told me you never call her at this time of year,” Carla says, drumming her fingers on his chest. “When I told her I was gonna visit you, she sounded so relieved.”

So that’s why she’s here. She hasn’t once pretended she’s in town to see anyone but him, and he likes that about her. Anyone else probably would’ve made up some sort of excuse for being in town.

“October isn’t my favorite month, yeah,” he mutters, then turns around so he can drape an arm across Carla’s bare chest. She squirms against him, moves over onto her side as well and finally lets out a contented hum when he’s all wrapped around her.

“We’ll figure it out.”

There’s no way to make his dead sister’s upcoming birthday go away, but he believes Carla when she says it like that, all matter-of-factly.

They’ll figure it out.

**Author's Note:**

> find me [on tumblr](http://cupcakeb.tumblr.com/)


End file.
